AMERICANS are not only enjoying an increasing influence on English football by buying up the top clubs – they may soon be changing the methods scouts and coaches employ in the search for new players.

Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa are all owned by tycoons from the other side of the Atlantic and now former Germany boss Jurgen Klinsmann and a number of Premier League officials are picking the brains of a baseball whizzkid with a knack for unearthing gems other major league outfits pass over or cast aside.

The A’s executive has been fascinated with professional football for a number of years now and visited the last World Cup in Germany to broaden his knowledge of the game.

Beane has a reputation for keeping Oakland successful despite having a relatively small budget compared to the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and others and his success was described in a multi-million selling book called ‘Moneyball.’

Klinsmann, who has a home in California, is a big fan of his methods and has just visited Beane to chat about his lateral thinking.

‘I’ve read about the approach Billy has with this team and the way they’ve put things together based on different information,’ said Klinsmann. ‘I’m taking the opportunity to see how he does it.’

Beane is interested in finding statistical models that can help soccer teams evaluate talent, much the way the A’s have used stats to target players to draft and sign.

He has talked to several Premier League officials, among other soccer bigwigs, about combining resources to find inequities in the market that might be exploited.

Any findings are also likely to be passed on to Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes – once owned by Leicester City chairman Milan Mandaric – because they are controlled by the group which owns the A’s.